“Go,” said the master, “each a different way. 
  Go teach the common brotherhood of man. 
  Preach Dharma, preach the law of perfect love,
  One law for high and low, for rich and poor. 
  Teach all to shun the cudgel and the sword,
  And treat with kindness every living thing. 
  Teach them to shun all theft and craft and greed,
  All bitter thoughts, and false and slanderous speech
  That severs friends and stirs up strife and hate. 
  Revere your own, revile no brother’s faith. 
  The light you see is from Nirvana’s Sun,
  Whose rising splendors promise perfect day. 
  The feeble rays that light your brother’s path
  Are from the selfsame Sun, by falsehoods hid,
  The lingering shadows of the passing night. 
  Chide none with ignorance, but teach the truth
  Gently, as mothers guide their infants’ steps,
  Lest your rude manners drive them from the way
  That leads to purity and peace and rest—­
  As some rude swain in some sequestered vale,
  Who thinks the visual line that girts him round
  The world’s extreme, would meet with sturdy blows
  One rudely charging him with ignorance,
  Yet gently led to some commanding height,
  Whence he could see the Himalayan peaks,
  The rolling hills and India’s spreading plains,
  With joyful wonder views the glorious scene. 
  Pause not to break the idols of the past. 
  Be guides and leaders, not iconoclasts. 
  Their broken idols shock their worshipers,
  But led to light they soon forgotten lie.”

  One of their number, young and strong and brave,
  A merchant ere he took the yellow robe,
  Had crossed the frozen Himalayan heights
  And found a race, alien in tongue and blood,
  Gentle as children in their daily lives,
  Untaught as children in all sacred things,
  Living in wagons, wandering o’er the steppes,
  To-day all shepherds, tending countless flocks,
  To-morrow warriors, cruel as the grave,
  Building huge monuments of human heads—­
  Fearless, resistless, with the cyclone’s speed
  Leaving destruction in their bloody track,
  Who drove the Aryan from his native plains
  To seek a home in Europe’s trackless wastes. 
  He yearned to seek these children of the wilds,
  And teach them peace and gentleness and love.[11]
  “But, Purna,” said the master, “they are fierce. 
  How will you meet their cruelty and wrath?”
  Purna replied, “With gentleness and love.” 
  “But,” said the master, “they may beat and wound.” 
  “And I will give them thanks to spare my life.” 
  “But with slow tortures they may even kill.” 
  “I with my latest breath will bless their names,
  So soon to free me from this prison-house
  And send me joyful to the other shore.” 
  “Then,” said the master, “Purna, it is well. 
  Armed with such patience, seek these savage tribes. 
  Thyself delivered, free from karma’s chains
  These souls enslaved; thyself consoled, console
  These restless children of the desert wastes;
  Thyself this peaceful haven having reached,
  Guide these poor wanderers to the other shore.”